The dismantling of the Department of Education is set to devastatingly affect Black and brown students, diverse universities and HBCUs. Dr. Leonard Moore, a distinguished professor of American History and former Vice President for Diversity and Community Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin, understands.
As founder of Black Student-Athlete Summit, which is celebrating its 10th annual event in Chicago this May, Dr. Moore has helped student athletes transition from post-graduation and post-sports careers. Now, he’s sharing how Black Student Unions nationwide can maintain their voice and livelihood despite the cutbacks.
EBONY: How are Black student unions being affected by DEI rollbacks?
Dr. Leonard Moore: It depends on the campus. A lot of Black student unions are student-run and are independent of any kind of university or official staff support. So, I think those organizations are going to be fine. The organizations where we’ll see struggle are those that had paid staff or budget–things of that nature. For the most part, the best Black student unions are those that are independently organized by students. Students are the driving force for the institution, and they can organize themselves best. For students in institutions with staff support, I think you’ll see a drop-off, and we saw that with the University of Texas.
In the case of the Fearless Leadership Institute–an organization my wife ran for Black women–when they had shut the program down, my wife worked with them to organize themselves, and they were having just as much success running themselves as they were when my wife was running the organization for ten years.
Why is this detrimental to young Black students?
The biggest part of the detriment is the loss of dedicated staff members. We all know that faculty can be very funny. Black faculty can be very bourgeois. Some Black faculty love to write about Black folk, speak about Black folk and consult about Black people. So, the biggest hurt will be the loss of dedicated staff who really made it their life’s mission to mentor, support and pray for these students.
I like to call it the HBCU prayer care share model. A lot of staff members at large white institutions embrace that, and with some of them being out of jobs, that will be a loss felt across campuses.
What is the University of Texas at Austin doing to protect student groups on campus?
At UT Austin, we have faculty and staff who are stepping up. We have to remind people that before there was a DEI office, before there was an office of multicultural affairs, and before there was an office of minority affairs or African American affairs, we had dedicated faculty and staff who would buy the pizzas and set up the tables. We would bring students to our house; we would take them to church, mentor them and get them internships to study abroad opportunities. So, I think we’ll just go back to that, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.
What can students nationwide do to have their voices heard in these unions?
Students need to come up with a set of priorities. What is most important for them? I think for a long time, we talked about having Black faculty, but what’s the use of Black faculty if they aren’t going to spend any time with Black students? We have to keep asking, what is important to you: Is it housing? Is it to get more Black students to the institution? Is it internships? Is it getting into certain majors?
We have to be careful not to impose on students what we think they should want and demand. We have to allow the students to come up with that for themselves. I’m in my fifties, and my students are 18 to 22-years-old, so they see the world differently, and I have to, too. Sometimes, I have to remember that and remind myself that my priorities as a college student between 1989 and 1993 may be a lot different than theirs in this generation.
What can we do/say to help students who feel we are going backward? How do we support them in feeling like they aren’t being attacked?
I’ll tell them that being a Black student at a PWI has not always been easy. In the case of places like Ohio State, Michigan, UCLA and USC, there’s always been a Black presence there, going back to the earliest part of the 20th century. Even at southern schools like Texas, LSU, Alabama and Georgia, Black folks have been there since the 1950s and 1960s. There is a legacy of Black achievement at these institutions. Now, we just have to roll up our sleeves a little bit and go back to what we, as Black folk, do and do best. We know how to take nothing and make something out of it.
